SmartLink Down?

Steve Sterling

Is SmartLink down or do with the Version 3 upgrade do we have to perform another setup? Both my Maestro and laptop app get the "connect" box and my  radio shows "Available" but when I try to connect I get about 8 "can't connect to the radio" dialog boxes appearing about 5 seconds apart (retries?)  I tried SmartLink setup but is says I must have both devices on the same LAN. I'm 1500 miles away.  It worked fine before for several years.

Mike-VA3MW

Hi Steve

I just tested my remote to my 6600 and it came right up.  

Is it possible the radio is actually down?  I have had something similar happen to me once and it took me rebooting my modem to resolve it, but that was some time ago.

Could it be something on the network you are using?  How is the speed and lantency?  Could other users be on the network?

Mike

Steve Sterling

On startup, the radio shows normally, online and "available."  I can Teamviewer into the station computer and start it normally (on the same LAN). Just not through SmartLink. I did also try 2 different internet connections-- through a wired internet connection that appears to be working fine and iphone/hotspot that has always worked in the past. Note that SmartLink does say it is connected for what that is worth.

Val DM1TX

I had same issue for some time and not able to figure out what is it. I am still debugging this.
Running ver 2.6.1 on Flex 6500

Mike-VA3MW

Hi

The process of connection to the radio is different between the 2 types of connections (Local LAN and SmartLink).

If you use SmartSDR on the local computer, go into SmartLink setup and see if you get a Green Button on the SmartLink test.  If you don't, that is why it is likely failing.

In the LAN case, the radio advertises itself on the network and any computer on the same subnet can hear the radio.  That is why that works.

In a SmartLink connection, it becomes very specific.  The Firewall/Router has to know at what IP address the radio is.  Since you can TV into a computer on the local LAN I would log into the Firewall/Router and make sure that the uPNP settings for the radio are correct.  They will specify the IP address of the radio and the ports in use.  

A simple fix might be to reboot the radio.  If you can do that, great.  If you haven't set up a reboot solution, you can send a command from FRStack to reboot the radio.  You will have to install it on local PC.  

Mike 

Steve Sterling

Mike-- thanks for the help. As suggested, I used Teamviewer to access my station computer and forced it to use SmartLink. I get the green checkmark "Configured for SmartLink" so it looks like the radio is configured, but it did NOT pass the test. So maybe something changed without my knowledge on my border router. I'll check that and also do a radio reboot. I have FRStack running locally. Again, thanks for the path forward to solving this.

James Eastham Jr

I had this happen the other day when I went to New Hampshire and the 6700 is in Maryland.  Been working flawlessly for couple of years.   Suddenly .....what happened?     I went in and looked at the UDP and TCP port settings and sure enough somehow they had changed....how I have no clue.   I was able to look at a SmartLink network settings calling up the radio at home.   Test showed the TCP forward port to be 21006 instead of 21000 which is what had been in Smartlink setup.   As soon as I changed it to 21006   it worked fine.   
Maybe that will help you. 
Jim NX3Z   

Steve Sterling

James, Michael, et. al. -- that is essentially what I have discovered. The ethernet interface on the Flex 6700 changed MAC address. I have my DHCP server set to always give a specific IP address to the 6700. Then I had the SmartLink ports forwarded to that specific IP address as upnp really wasn't reliable. This was like 7 years ago when I bought it, so I'd forgot. When the 6700 comes on with a different MAC address the DHCP server doesn't recognize and gives it a different IP. Port Forwarding is to the old IP it was previously on. Easy to fix once I get access.

We may be experiencing a power outage at the remote station as i currently can't access anything.

Thanks for the help troubleshooting.
Steve WA7DUH

Mike-VA3MW

Ah, I think that was a fix from some time ago.  I would have to go back through all the readme's to find it.   Sorry about that, but it should not happen again.  

When I do  club talks on remote operating, I do always highly recommend having a remote PC on the same subnet is an invaluable debugging tool.

You just walked through one of the reasons why it is important especially if you are away for an extended period of time.

In 15 years of doing this, I have always had 1 or 2 Windows PC's at my station.  And, to be honest, they have never really let me down and kept me off the air.  What has kept me off the air is my ISP, Rodents and a questionable UPS that decided it got too cold and shut down.  That was the last thing I expected from a UPS.

Glad you got it resolved.

Mike